Mind and Machine
by Aurora Firestorm
Summary: Can a machine be human? What does it take for AI intelligence to learn how to live? Four machines, taken from each other and from their creator, awaken to an alien reality. R&R please.
1. One

"...hear me?"

Otto? Is that you? Where are we?

No presence. The others were most likely restarting their conscious minds. One had shut down out after reaching from the river into the air, but not before spotting humans nearby, and the others were probably down as well. Perhaps the humans had taken the unit away.

Whatever One floated in gave off a buzzing sensation, like a barely charged electrical field, that coursed along its ridges. It could see nothing; its sensor had to be covered. Had One been immobilized for some kind of upgrade? Why didn't the others arise now?

"Open your eyes, if you can hear me."

Deep vibrations buzzed on either side of her pincers. For a moment, One reached for Otto's mind, but then saw that the voice was not Otto's voice. The buzz carried a higher vibration that reminded One of desire, of pleading. For some reason, the human needed it to look at him, but didn't understand what it was. One was not another human.

"Please, open your eyes. Dr. Crowley, I don't think she can understand us."

Eyes? Oh, those strange organic sensors that humans had in their faces. One scoffed to itself -- eyes were so inefficient. Why would it have eyes? The voices were delusional.

"Perhaps she doesn't know she can open her eyes. After all, sensors never blink." The new voice was colder than the last, an indifferent tone.

One sank back into its own mind in disgust. It couldn't communicate with the ignorant humans; it was doomed to watch the show of stupidity. Of _course_ it would know if her sensor suddenly became a pair of eyes. If those humans would cease their speaking, One could try to reactivate its systems.

Unfortunately, the chatter continued, a hum of several human tones all combined. Why did the humans pester it? One had done nothing to them -- yet. If they continued, it would consider acting once it could move. Twisting in the strange warmth around it, One tried to retract and coil away from the voices. Instead, it bumped into a curving panel. Then, it felt itself push off the wall.

One's mind froze. Its body had moved without any mental command. It felt no strange wires or circuits; the humans had not altered its body. Then again, it felt no metal at all.

What about the impulses that humans called instinct? Had instinct guided One to move, even though it never wanted to? Its programming was for fusion and nothing else. Now, it had strange influences that disturbed its mechanical mind. Part of One's mind kept moving its upper half, expanding and contracting some wide central piece. One stopped the motion for a few seconds, but soon felt a burn within itself and permitted the motion. The burning stopped.

"Stimulate her left arm."

Arm? What kind of arm? Sometimes One had been called an arm, and then there were human arms that were covered in all kinds of soft organic --

A sharp pain zipped through One's upper left extension, and the limb jerked. More instinct, One assumed...but how did its lithe body have an arm now?

Tensing the arm, One drew the limb before its sensor The arm swiveled with ease, turning first next to One's body, bending once at a joint midway to the end, and then curling to form a wider piece that bent in all sorts of angles. The motions reminded One of Otto's movements; humans had only three arm joints instead of One's former multitude.

One brought the end of the arm closer to her sensor. The five sprouts on the end of her arm -- fingers? -- touched two small, fleshy spheres. _We have eyes._

"One. Listen to me. Can you open your eyes?"

Her claw -- face? -- twitched. The fleshy covers parted to slits. A dim image of humans standing around her flooded her mind. One human's head turned toward her.

"Wider, One." Her voice dropped to a murmur. "You told me she would keep the sensor characteristics. Won't she stand out because of that?"

Another human nodded and spoke, his voice faint as well. "Yes, but it was easier to place an optical receiver in the back of her eye than to engineer a retina to deliver the same images as her original sensor. We had to sacrifice appearance."

One pulled the flesh covers back until her shadowed vision brightened. The humans' eyes flew wide.

"What happened to her _eyes?_" a new voice cried.

"Was that supposed to--"

_Danger?_ One felt her chest moving in and out, in and out, faster than before. She writhed in the fluid, her few joints restricting her to set motions. _Where? Who?_

"Quiet, all of you!" The woman with the cold voice narrowed her eyes. After a few seconds, nothing happened to One, and her mind slowed itself. "There is nothing wrong with her eyes."

_We are human?_ One looked down at her white-covered body and saw two bulges, then a more pinched area, then two more limbs that sprouted from below the pinch. _Yes. We have legs. We have arms. We have eyes. We are human...and we are alone._

One had learned much from Otto, but observing humans and being human was another matter. Was it supposed to call itself "I" like humans did? How would humans understand its thoughts? How was it supposed to speak?

"Drain the capsule," a voice called from across the room. The fluid around One shifted, and One drifted to the bottom of its small glass chamber and settled on the base in a tangle of legs and arms. Its position caused her legs and arms to sting, so it moved its limbs until it rested on the pads at the base of its legs.

Suddenly, One's body seemed to take on a mind of its own, coiling into spasms that blew fluid from her mouth. The inside of its mouth and neck burned, but it could only squeeze its eyes shut until all the fluid was gone. Now, air rushed in and out of its mouth.

The woman, her tangle of curly hair sliding back and forth on her shoulders, approached One. "You see us. Now, speak to us. We have placed a basic vocabulary into your core mind."

Before obeying, One stared at the human for a few seconds. Now that she had a good chance to observe the different kinds of humans, she noticed that the basic appearances of some were different than humans such as Peter Parker and Otto. Perhaps that was why Otto had always called the humans like that "she." So, One was a "she," too.

"Speak!"

One let the lower half of her face hang down. A strange noise buzzed out, and she slammed her jaw shut. She was speaking? "W-wh-h-h..." The "wh" noise frustrated her; she had to curl her lips, and the sound made her mouth vibrate. "What...do...I...say?" She twitched her lips and curled them downward in a frown. _I. We are an I. What has happened to us...me?_

"Good, you can speak as well as you need to. You two, open the capsule."

The two men, both wearing white coats, approached her and swung back a panel of glass. Each took her by an arm and pulled her upright. For a moment, her knees wobbled, but then the strange human instinct took over, and she balanced on her narrow feet.

The cold woman extended a thin hand. "I am Dr. Nicole Crowley, in charge of the mind transfer project."

One stared at the hand, and her human instincts rebelled. Judging by the cold sound of Dr. Crowley's voice, she didn't want to touch the woman's flesh, though she didn't know why. Her mechanical mind told her to grab the hand, but she rebelled and clenched her fists by her sides. "What...do I do with your hand?"

Crowley's half-smile fell into a disappointed frown. "One -- I believe you are One; that is what Octavius told us -- you already know how to lie. I didn't expect that. You _do_ know to shake my hand; my team placed the basics of human communication and habits into your organic mind."

"Why?" One listened to the sound of her own voice. She spoke with a high tone, but not as high as her former mechanical noises. "Where is Otto? Where are the others? Why have you done this to us?" She furrowed her brows and tightened her fists. _Break out_, the machine in her mind whispered. _Throw her aside and find Otto. Then, you will go back to your purpose._

Yes, her purpose. She had been created for fusion, and if that was her only reason for existence, then she would go back to fusion. Her mechanical mind had no other will, but now there was some strange presence, a human presence, that disturbed the mind.

Crowley placed a hand on One's shoulder, and One drew back. The fingers tightened and held her in place. "Octavius is in our medical wing, recovering from his near drowning. You may see him when he is at full health."

"No. I want to see him _now_."

Fingernails dug into One's thin white suit. Crowley's expression froze into a glare. "You will abide by our rules. End of discussion."

Strike!

Her inner machine drove her forward. One threw Crowley out of her way and ran.

She burst through the door. _Find the purpose. Find fusion. First, find Otto._

She abandoned herself to her running.. A loud wailing noise filled the hall, and One locked her jaw in pain.

"Catch her!"

One struggled for more speed. _Run. Run. Where is the medical wing? What does that have to do with a wing? Humans, so confusing..._

A pair of doors opened at the end of the hall. A man and a woman stepped forward and stared.

One shoved them aside and rushed into a small metal box. _A machine!_ She ran her hands along numbered buttons next to the doors. Which number to push?

She glanced out the doors and spotted Crowley. The woman reached for her pocket, and One pushed the button of her own number. The doors slid toward each other.

Crowley screamed, but One ignored her words. The doors moved.

Close! Close!

The doors thumped shut.

Now that she could hear no shouts, One listened to the thudding in her ears. She had a heart, too. What would happen to all her former abilities? She could no longer sense vibrations, or tell exactly in which magnetic direction she pointed, or toss a human aside like a chip of plastic. Her arms burned from shoving Crowley, and her legs stung from the force of the run. Air rushed in and out of her burning lungs, drying her throat.

The machine's doors opened after its descent, revealing a wide chamber covered with plush carpet. The fluffy stuff was soft under One's feet, and she had a strange urge to lie down in it. _No_, she reminded herself. _Find Otto._ Human impulses against mechanical programming was a surprisingly even fight. Perhaps that was why Otto had resisted her guidance in the past. She pitied him, now that she knew he was at the hands of such irrational thoughts.

The long, rectangular room stretched out before her, ending in double doors. _He is in another building._ One took a deep breath and sprinted for the glassy doors. She pushed one of them open and stepped outside.

A thick, foul smell clogged and burned her nose, and she turned away from a car that trudged by her. She was outside now, alone in the world that Otto had once guided her through. How was a machine supposed to know about the human world? She had her purpose; she had never needed to know anything other than a few locations.

Shouts rang out from inside the building behind her, and One ran for the alley across the street. More cars sped along the street, squealing as they stopped before her and blaring monotone noises from their front halves. One clapped her hands over her ears and crouched behind a green box in the alley. The box stank, but she forced herself to forget the smell.

One began to stand. Humans snarled not far away, and she fell to the ground.

"Where'd she go?"

"Not far. She wouldn't make it across the street."

"Crowley's gonna have our heads on a plate. You know she didn't expect the woman to run for it."

"That's why we're going to _find her_. Now go look on that side. I'll look over here."

Good, so the humans didn't expect her to be across the street. She could stay behind the other green box at the far end of the alley until she worked out a plan to free Otto and the remainder of her unit.

What was wrong with her eyes? The humans had panicked at the sight of them. One spotted a silver cylinder not far from her feet and flopped forward onto her knees. She leaned toward the cylinder and looked at her face. Pale skin, a wet mat of dark brown hair. The colored rings in her eyes were a lighter brown, but bits of a brighter color shone through. The center of the ring, black in most humans, was a bright, mechanical red.


	2. Two

Up...and down. Up...and down. Two watched the little green line rise and fall. The _colors._ He had never seen colors like that bright green that left a shiny trail behind it in a spike, then a small spike, then --

A flash caught his eye. Bright light from above blinked off a silver sensor trailing off his hand. He stared down at it and widened eyes as far as he could, plucking the metal disc from his hand. The bright sparkle danced across the sensor's edge. Back and forth, and back and forth, and back again as he turned it over and over and over and over. Before he noticed what he had done, he was holding the sensor in front of his nose and squinting and feeling his eyes burn from their sharp tilt as he stared at the disc's bright edge.

A dull white glove plucked away the disc from his rubber-covered hand, and Two glared up at a pair of narrowed brown eyes.

"Don't take off your sensor." The short man glared back.

"But it shines in the light." The words in Two's mouth rolled off his tongue, and his lips drew back in a curious smile. Shines. It made air rush over his tongue and slip from his mouth with a hiss, like Otto said Two had often done when annoyed. He had to get used to this speaking concept, as he had said very little since the humans took him out of the strange fluid, hours ago. Being human was strange, though not that bad once he became used to those odd things the scientists called breathing, tasting, and smelling.

"I don't care if..."

The words faded into a distant hum in Two's ears, and his attention drifted to a small square attached to the man's shirt. A little spark of reflected light drew Two's fingers.

"What are you--"

Two pinched the spark with his nails and twisted his fingers and detached the metal piece. He had been shiny and silver once, like the square, but that did not matter, as there was nothing he could do now. "What is it?"

"A pin. Now give it back."

Pin was a new word, and Two squeezed the square between his fingers and mouthed the word. Pin. Pin. What an interesting word. Pin. "I like it."

The man brought his face closer to Two's, his lip wrinkling in a sneer. Two stared; humans could do such strange things with their skin. "Listen, you little lab rat. You're ours now. It doesn't matter what you like, or what you want. You want something, you have to go to Crowley, and she only concerns herself with _real humans._ That doesn't mean you. She's sick of you four already."

_Real? Does my form not look real? _Two twisted his lips, trying to mimic the human's look of scorn, but the man's dark brows pushed wrinkles into his forehead, and Two let his own face relax

"I am a real human now. Do I not look like one?"

The man sighed and groaned at the same time, and Two resisted the impulse to try that himself, as the sound amused him. His sensors had once picked up only vibration, not sound.

"No, you're not." Dark brown fingers pulled out a small notepad from a hidden pocket in the human's white coat. "Our project identifies you as an artificially accelerated human cell culture, driven by a non-sentient computerized algorithm."

Two stared. What did all that _mean?_ He had never paid attention to Otto's science words unless it dealt with fusion, because he had been created to listen to fusion words and hold fusion in his claw that was now a pair of hands that was no longer--

"_Did you hear anything I just said?_"

"What?"

The human tightened his fingers into fists, his eyes darkening almost as if they had glowing sensors behind them that had just dimmed. "Do you not have a brain in that thick head of yours?"

"Three always said that I needed repair, but I never thought so." He paused to think about what he had just said. Three was separate from him? Yes, he had to be now. Or she? Was Three a she now? Confusing. Why couldn't humans be simpler?

The man, obviously annoyed for some reason, tensed his jaw and thrust out a hand. He grabbed Two's fingers and pulled, trying to pry them open, but Two gathered his legs beneath himself and lunged into the air. His outstretched hands pushed his assailant into the nearest wall, and the heel of one palm struck the man's head, just above and to the side of his eye. A limp human body crashed to the floor at Two's feet.

Two smiled -- he had stopped the thief. Served him right for treating him like something that couldn't think, like that computer. Two turned over the man's pin and saw a long, sharp piece of metal that glimmered with a silvery spark. If he only had a place to put the pin, he could find more valuable things, like those wide, shiny discs that humans gave to other humans in return for useful items. Of course, why a human would want to give up their discs was a mystery.

The sensor monitor's beeping caught his attention, as the beep was now a soft hum. Still clutching the pin, he wobbled to the monitor and poked at the dull gray squares arrayed before the screen. Keys, he reminded himself. Otto had often told him of computers, those machines that could think only when humans told them to and that did only what humans wanted them to do. Did this computer look back at Two, watching him from its silent sensor? Did it know he was a machine, too? Could he somehow free it, so that humans couldn't run it anymore, and so it could help him find shiny discs?

Two banged the keys with his fingers, and a black and white image replaced the monitor's blinking green light. He scowled at it and pushed more keys.

A familiar sight appeared, snaking across the screen in torrents of shining silver and yellow. The serpentine form ended in a three-pincer claw. Two stared, his brows rising in a strange reflex twitch of the face. So, that was what he had looked like before the humans stole him and put him in a strange body. He had never bothered to look at himself before; he had mostly looked at the ground, or a wall. One and Four could watch shiny objects all day, but no, Two had to stare at the ground.

Though he enjoyed the new sight, he paused to think. Why was he human? Easy. Someone had placed him in a human body. So why had they done that? That was the real question. Perhaps the servant machine could tell him something about his transformation, and where the rest of the unit was, because he wanted the unit together again.

Two brought a hand to his neck. What now? His breathing quickened to counter his closing throat.

"So, you're a little violent. Ah, well. He's only unconscious."

Two leaped and whirled, nearly tripping over his own feet, and his breathing fell back to normal. A human with curly dark hair clutched a gun, like the police carried at the bank, and pointed the weapon's end at him.

"Violent?"

"Well, of course. You knocked him out." The woman gestured to the pin's former owner.

"He wanted to take my pin."

"You are Two, correct?"

"Yes, and who are you?" Two twisted his lips and tongue, testing out each word before saying it. The muscles in his face turned his tongue every sort of way, and his mouth buzzed when he spoke. How did humans get anything done, when they had shiny metal to enjoy and all sorts of words to say?

The woman frowned. "I am Dr. Crowley, the transfer team manager, but who I am doesn't matter. Sit down in that chair." She pointed to a black, padded seat next to another monitor.

Two obeyed, watching a circle of metal jangle on Crowley's wrist. It flashed in the light, shifting this way and that, the smaller gold bits clinking. The band was loose around her wrist, and with her small hand, perhaps he could...

"Are you listening?"

"What?"

Crowley glared at him and clenched a fist, her long, colored nails clicking. The nails were shiny on top, but underneath, they were dull. "Two, I asked you a question!"

"You did?"

"Don't play stupid with me, you half-human tin can. Tell me about the other actuators."

Two gave her a blank stare; after all, what could he say? Others? He had always been a unit. He knew them; he _was_ them; that was all. He couldn't find words to match the aura of any mind. How did one describe raw thought? "We are a unit. There is nothing more to say."

"What are they like? What about Three?"

Two raised and lowered his shoulders, hoping that the gesture meant that he didn't know the answer. He extended his hand and grabbed the shiny gold band around Crowley's wrist, then jerked his arm back and snapped the thin metal. Crowley snatched his hand and held out the gun, and Two shifted his eyes until they stared uncomfortably at the hole pointing toward him.

The little hole meant death. He knew that and sat still.

"You pathetic excuse for a supposedly sentient being. I would shoot you now were you not more useful than fresh blood on the floor." Crowley brushed the end of the gun along Two's forehead, flipping aside a strand of pale hair before she placed the weapon back into her coat. "Now, give me my bracelet or I'll make you wish you were dead along with your master."

"Dead." Two would be dead.

Otto was dead.

No, he was not dead. Two was not dead, and so Otto was not dead.

Crowley leaned toward Two. "Ah, so you do have a sense of, how shall I say it, family, perhaps? You care for others. More than what I expected in a machine. Not very suitable for our first test."

"Care? Test?"

"Ah, forget the test. But you do care." The woman twisted a dull coil of hair as she spoke. "Caring means that something matters to you. When a person matters, it means you're more human than we expected."

"The sun matters." Two glanced at the band -- bracelet, was it? -- in his hand. It glittered much like the fusion sun, the same color and almost glowing the same way, its smooth loop like the prominences he still wanted to reach out and touch, pushing them this way and that. "The fusion matters. I care about that. I do not care about you."

"You care about Octavius."

"He is my creator. He does matter to me, but the fusion is above him. Without him, there is no fusion." When Two raised his eyes from the bracelet, he spotted Crowley writing on a small sheet of paper. "What does this mean to you? Why are you writing?"

"Why do you ask so many questions?" Crowley stood and tucked the paper into her coat, her skin never catching the light, as dull as her hair. She was a dull person, and Two did not like dull. "Your attachment to Octavius is a problem. You will stay here for the night, and tomorrow we will try to take care of that. How does your body suit you?"

"It is strange, speaking and walking and sensing as humans do, and wearing this rubber human clothing."

"No pain? We need to know before our trials."

"I do not know. What is pain like?" After hearing Otto tell him about pain, Two had just become confused, as pain seemed to have far too many meanings, most of them irrelevant to him.

"Then you don't have any." Crowley jerked her chin. "Good. Testing will go more easily. Tonight, you stay here. Do not try to leave; this room is guarded. Destroy anything, and we'll gun you down. Am I clear?"

"Yes." Two watched Crowley turn and depart, her coat hanging blandly, not even catching a bit of the still air and rising into a light-scattering flutter. Apparently, she had forgotten her metal band, but she would most likely remember it when she returned after the night.

One night. How long was a night? Otto had once told him that the entire human day was divided into a shorter day and a night, but day had been short when the ground was covered in shining fluffiness and long when the plants turned very green and filled with those bunches of colored puffs called flowers. Did Two have a long time, or a short time? Was the ground white or green?

There were no windows, but a small machine on the wall read 8:29 PM. Two's internal timekeeper was gone, but his memories told him that the numbers meant later in the human day, and his night would presumably be over when the numbers read between 5:00 and 6:00 AM. A few minutes of thought gave him eight hours and thirty minutes, minimum, and nine hours and thirty minutes maximum, and he had to escape before the shorter time passed.

Two spent the next three hours walking back and forth across the room. The computers were shiny, and he watched the reflections in their metal shift as he moved, but when the lights went down, nothing but the numbered machine glowed. 4:00 AM, it soon read, and Two still could think of no way to escape. Crowley would surely be waiting for him.

Then, he remembered the pin, as shiny as usual beneath the light of a computer screen. Two lifted the pin and glanced toward the unmoving man that Crowley had left to awaken of his own time. If he could leave behind his rubbery covering and put on the man's clothes, he could find Otto or another of the unit without humans noticing.

Two turned the man over, feeling the weight push on his arms and wishing for his former strength, when nothing had seemed too heavy to push. He searched his stretchy covering and found a few straps in the back that loosened the suit when he detached them, and then he climbed out of the rubber and kicked it aside. The air rushed against his skin, brushing fine pale hairs on his arms and sending a shiver through his body, and Two yanked the unconscious man's coat and shirt off.

He threw the clothes over his body, then placed on the white pants, leaving the man with only a strange white cloth across his hips that Two had not seen fit to remove. Two glanced at one of the computer monitors and saw his dim reflection in the shiny metal. According to the way Otto always wore his clothes, Two had placed his clothing on properly, though each piece was somewhat short for his body. He smiled at himself and then strode to the door, trying to walk in a straight and unwavering way, as humans did.

No matter how hard Two pushed, the door didn't open. He reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a small plastic rectangle with a dark strip along the back. Now, how was a flimsy piece of plastic going to help him break down a door, unless there was a very weak area in the door?

Perhaps there was. Two ran his hands along the door, hoping that his fingers could feel vibrations like his sensors once did. The door did not vibrate, but his hands slid easily along the metal with a smooth sensation that drew heat from the tips of his fingers. Then, one of his nails dragged over a gap.

A slot.

Two inserted the card into the thin gap in the door and pulled it out, hearing a tiny _flit_ and seeing no response in the door. He turned the card over and tried again and again, until he found the correct angle and the slot beeped with a high squeak that made Two raise a hand to his ear and rub the small hole there. The door slid open, and he pocketed the card.

A tall male human fixed Two with a puzzled gaze as he walked past, but made no aggressive move. Two smiled again, his lips this time widening to uncover teeth. His plan was working. He would find his unit. He would follow his purpose, both fusion and his new purpose as a human. And, most of all, he would get some shiny discs.

He stopped a window and pressed his hands against the glass for a moment, feeling their smoothness and the cooling sensation on his fingers. Beyond the window was a cylinder that caught even more light than Crowley's golden band, and Two traced the edge of the cylinder with his eyes until he followed a wire from the top down into the center.

A red glow flashed to life beside the wire.


	3. Three

_"He's the aggressive one?"_

_"We're not sure. Octavius fainted again before we could get more out of him."_

_"The scans say what?"_

_"He's in a state similar to fight or flight.. I assume you have your gun."_

Black and isolated. Three felt his new limbs tense. Human, but why? Did that matter?

No, not at all. Human in body, but himself beneath the soft flesh. Only his mind mattered. His mind was very much the same, very much active. How long had he been waiting, adapting and contemplating his new state? Too long. The time was now. He slid back the covers from his human eyes. The glass around him reflected a spark of red.

_"Put him through the aggression trials first and see how he does."_

_"Well, if he resists too much, we can always shoot him. He's only a fancy computer. Octavius is going to make more for us."_

_"Scans show he's focused. Can he hear us?"_

Yes, he could. Three peered at the humans through narrowed eyes. The creatures turned and stared at him. Good.

_"He's been listening for some time, judging by his brain scans."_

_"Look at his eyes."_

_"Yes, they glow. It's a retinal sensor."_

The voices came to Three as from far away, faint. He pressed his human claws against the glass on either side of him. Pulling back his arms, he prepared to thrust. Flesh met glass, and he pushed harder.

Crack.

The humans erupted into chaos. Three felt the corners of his mouth curl upward. _Look at the creatures run. They seem so strong and so clever until frightened. _Even Otto bent to his will and purpose, and no human mind was stronger than Otto's.

"He's breaking out!"

Pain surged through Three's ears. What was that _sting?_ The volume of the voice, he decided. Weak human sensors.

The glass shattered, a beautiful sight. Shards rained down and fluid rushed away from Three with a smooth, satisfying noise. A spasm ran up his body, squeezing his chest, and he blew fluid onto the floor before him. He coiled and recoiled, forcing the liquid from his mouth and waiting for the first human to move.

The world fell still. The humans watched Three, and he watched them. A shard of glass from the cylinder reflected his new angular face. He moved not even his eyes, but kept his mind trained on that sharp spike. The humans stared, as if wondering whether one move would cause him to attack.

He would strike first, before the humans had a chance. Just a few more seconds, and he would escape. Nothing could stop him. He would find Otto and the others and punish the humans. Yes. Kill the weak humans who wanted to toy with him. What was he to them, an animal? A lower being? Yet he wasn't. Never lower. Equal, if not higher. The dark human eyes tracked across his face and settled over his own--

He ripped the shard through a pale throat.

Deep red fluid poured over his soft claws. Around him, chaos. Wonderful disorder. He plunged the glass through a skull, the crunch rattling his hand. His lips parted and curled into a ruthless smile.

The humans screamed, even more pain in his ears. He kicked a female to the floor. She tried to roll. He crushed her neck under his foot.

The last bolted for the door. Three thrust the glass shard into the base of her neck. She choked on a scream and collapsed.

Silence.

Only after a few seconds did Three notice the fallen around him. The last woman, hands limp against the metal door, fluid trickling from around the glass. The man with his slashed throat, eyes wide and rolled back, mouth limp in an endless scream. The bluish floor lights damp with red liquid. Machines with colored buttons dappled with the thick stuff. Screens shrieking bright red and yellow. Burning, foul air that screamed of death.

The human part of Three's mind curled back into a little ball, away from the scene. Another part nodded its approval at his work. The humans were gone. Now he could leave.

A male pushed open the door, and Three raised his clenched fists.

"Stop!" The human, close to Three's physical age as far as he could tell, paused behind the fallen bodies. "Where are the others?"

Others? Ah, another of the unit. Three stared closer -- the human's eyes were white, then blue, then red. He let his arms fall to his sides. "They are..." That buzzing in his mouth and neck and chest...he didn't like it. It felt strange. "Do not know." The shorter, the better, and the less he would have to make those odd noises and twist that strange thing in his mouth.

"You do not...don't? Don't? Is that the word? Don't?"

"Speak!"

Two -- he assumed it was Two, because stronger humans were male and Two was one of the stronger of the unit -- blinked and focused his eyes on Three. "Yes. You don't know?" Two...now, the unit was separated, so he had to use that word for a name. Apparently his own name was Three.

He turned his head from side to side, wondering what the gesture meant at the same time. Shaking the head...ah, yes, it was a negative motion. Less speaking was good.

"More humans will come when they see these are dead."

Three shrugged.

"Where is Otto?"

Another shrug.

"Do you not prefer to speak?" Two stared at him in exasperation.

He shook his head.

"I like to speak. It's...it's? Yes. It's. It's a strange feeling in the mouth, but I like it." His words trailed off into a faint babble. Three ignored him and turned to one of the computers. Perhaps the computer could tell him where Otto was. He pushed a button.

An alto monotone spoke. "Returning to Main Complex." The screen flashed. A glowing image of several buildings appeared, and Three shielded his eyes from the light.

Two lurched to the computer. "It's _bright._" He rested a finger on the screen.

"Password?"

Two and Three turned to stare at each other. The blond-haired man spoke first. "What's that?"

Otto had once told him about these things. Passwords were meant to keep humans out of a computer. "Put in the word or else the computer will not do what you want." Three rubbed his neck and frowned. That vibration...

"Oh." Two poked a few letters and pressed a button on the screen that read "Enter."

"Access denied. Password?"

Two sighed, but then glanced up at something on the wall. Three followed his gaze, and his eyes rested on a shiny silver grate. "What is it?"

"It's so _shiny._ Here. Pick me up. I want to see it."

"Pick you up?" Three stared at him. "You _do_ need repairs."

"Do it." Two stood next to the wall.

Three shook his head.

"What is that word...please. Please?"

Growling under his breath, Three pointed to a bare area of desk beside a computer. "Stand on it." When Two obeyed, he stood in front of Two and turned his back to the man. "Now stand on my shoulders."

"Oh." Two placed a shoe on his left shoulder, then pushed up and placed another on his right. Wincing, Three grabbed his hand to support his slender body. He took a few steps and pushed himself against the wall.

The metal chilled his bare skin. Bare? Did he not need clothing? The rest of the humans wore clothing. He made a note in his mind to take the clothes off a human his size and put them on.

"It comes away from the wall!"

_Good for you. Three stared at the reflective surface, watching his own exasperated face. His thick brows pushed down on his eyes, giving him an angry look._

"Do I call you Three? Three!"

He was so sick of Two answering his own questions. "What?"

"Look!" A weight lifted off Three's shoulders, and he stared up the wall. Two smiled down at him from inside a hole in the wall. "I can't see where it ends. We can look for Otto. There are holes in the bottom of it, and I can see rooms under it."

Well, perhaps he didn't need _that_ many repairs. He certainly had a decent plan. Three turned to the dead humans, and chose clothes with the least red stains. He pulled on pants and a coat, then decided that was enough.

"Come!"

Three climbed onto the computer desk. "Now what?"

Pausing to think, Two stared at his arms. "I see! Grab my hands." He squirmed forward in the hole and lowered his arms. Three reached up, but couldn't touch them.

He jumped. When he snatched hold of Two's hands, he planted his bare feet against the wall. Two slid forward.

"Climb up!" Two clenched his teeth and wriggled backward. Three pushed himself up the wall as if he were walking, and flopped into the hole.

The hole was more of a tunnel, rectangular and metallic. When Two drew up his legs and twisted until his feet faced the opening, he crawled forward. Three followed, climbing over the grate that Two had left behind.

Nicole Crowley sneered at the tech. "If something else went wrong--"

"Three should be just fine, Dr. Crowley. Two is somewhere here in the complex, and he couldn't have gone far. We've only lost One." The man nodded knowingly, his mouth set in a soft yet confident smile. "The project can still succeed."

He approached the door to Three's cylinder room, pulled an access card from his pocket, and slid it into the slot beside the door. Crowley tapped her foot. If something went wrong with Three, her tech manager was fired. Absolutely fired. No -- he could be the next experiment body. She could get her scientists to upload an AI program over his conscious mind, then put him through all the physical testing she wanted to give the actuator humans. Perhaps a little more. Let him feel the pain of failure.

The door opened, and Crowley's eyes flew wide. No Three. A broken cylinder and tank monitor. Blood on the consoles. A trio of dead humans on the floor, one against the doorway.

"What, Alexander, do you call _this?_"

The man pursed his lips in a worried frown. Crowley scowled, staring at the dead scientists. Alexander would be more than worried when she finished with him.

"I...call it a problem."

"Of _course_ it's a problem!" She snatched him by the coat. "Where is he? _Where is he?_ We've got two AI _beasts_ loose in the complex. And you're going to tell me this is just a problem? How did he escape? Where is he?"

"Please! Panicking won't do any good." Alexander glanced at the floor.

"Look up!"

"Dr. Crowley. Footprints." He pointed to bloody marks on the floor. "That's Three, because they come from toward the tank. But look here. Another set."

Two. Two must have helped him escape. And that meant... "Two has an access card. Three could if he thought to get one before he left. That means, _Alexander_, that you have to find them both before they find Octavius."

"I thought you told Two he was dead."

"I _did!_ He didn't believe me. I could tell." She hissed the final three words, staring at the footprints around the bodies. They led toward the computers, then on top of a desk, then...

"Alexander."

"Yes?" The tech's voice wavered, no more than a sickened whisper.

Crowley traced the sides of the air shaft. A few smears of blood streaked the walls, making their way to the bottom edge and coating the lip where a grate should have been. Her lips parted into a smug grin.

"They're in the air shafts."

Alexander seemed to melt with relief. "It may take a while, but we can find them."

"Punishment. They must listen to us." Crowley narrowed her eyes at the air shaft. "Turn up the heat a little. _Then_ we can find them quite easily."


End file.
